“It’s a proper sweat fest in this Tokyo heat. Without doubt a major factor in this World Cup. Who will cope best with shorter and more sympathetic passes? Probably the bigger, more direct sides. But then conditioning a massive factor in last 20 Volume 19, Number 35 [minutes].” - FrontRowGrunt waxing lyrical on Twitter. 20 September 2019 Register to receive your own free weekly newsletter at www.rugbyrsa.co.za

Showdown in Yokohama: Boks vs All Blacks

You haven’t been paying attention if you don’t know Consider Gareth Mason’s video post from two that Rugby World Cup 2019 in Japan begins today at weeks ago. It’s the middle of the typhoon (tropical 11:30 (our time) with the opening ceremony. The first cyclone) season in that part of the world and it is match kicks off in Tokyo just over an hour later as the pretty certain that some matches may be affected. hosts take on Russia. If the latest world rankings are anything to go by, it should be a comfortable win for Looking at the Tokyo forecast for Friday, it looks Japan (ranked 10 in the world) against opponents like being hot, humid and, as FrontRowGrunt puts it: ranked 20th. “It’s a proper sweat fest in this Tokyo heat. Without doubt a major factor in this World Cup. Who will But this is the World Cup and the self-same Japanese cope best with shorter and more sympathetic passes? Brave Blossoms humbled the mighty Springboks on Probably the bigger, more direct sides. But then this stage just over four years ago so it would be wise conditioning a massive factor in last 20 [minutes].” not to begin counting poultry just yet. Besides, conditions will be challenging – very challenging. But on Saturday in Yokohama – a mere 33 kilometres south of the capital city – the forecast Various reports suggest that weather is likely to be a suggests buckets of rain. That weather, should it major factor throughout the tournament. And we’re arrive, will play havoc with the match scheduled in not just talking about humidity, heat or buckets of rain. that city at 11h45 that day: Springboks vs All Blacks.

Rain or no rain, it’s going to be a cracker. Interestingly, there hasn’t been much comment about the weather out of the Bok camp but Kiwi supporters seem quite concerned.

Oh ja, in total, there are seven games planned for this weekend at stadia dotted around Japan (see page eight). The opener on Friday, three matches on Saturday and another three on Sunday. And then the action continues next week with five matches scheduled for Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

KEY TOPICS IN THIS NEWSLETTER

World Cup Analysis Reaches Fever-Pitch Sevens Series Preparation Gets Underway Saffers for Other Countries at RWC2019 SA Youth Exodus to Foreign Shores Begins Springbok Women to Face Spain, Scotland For your weekend rugby viewing pleasure

Page 1 World Cup Analysis Reaches Fever-Pitch

Speaking of the Rugby World Cup, there has been More concerningly, five of those Tests were against plenty of analysis of the tournament as a whole and of the All Blacks and South Africa lost all five. It doesn’t the Springboks, in particular, over the past few weeks. bode well but then, records are made to be broken, With the competition kicking off later today, we’re right? taking the opportunity to highlight some of what we found interesting, maddening or just mad.

And no, we will leave assignation of the categories above to the opinions below as an exercise for the reader. First up, was Wynona Louw, who wrote about how she would make three changes to the Springbok team selected by Rassie for the Japan clash. The three changes are: in for Francois Louw; Trevor Nyakane in for Frans Malherbe; and Herschel Jantjies in for Faf de Klerk. As if that’s not bad enough, a South African developed deep-learning system currently thinks the Springboks While her reasoning is sound but it appears that Coach will do better against Namibia than against Canada, Rassie Erasmus either didn’t see the article, chose to beating the neighbouring country by 63 points while ignore it completely or is planning to use those only scoring 55 points against the North American strategies closer to the sharp end of the tournament. team. Indeed, he announced his team to play the All Blacks in Saturday’s opener this week and it was exactly the But Ruggerbot, as the system is known, reckons the same one that ran out against Japan almost two weeks Springboks will be lose to New Zealand tomorrow, by ago. [Perhaps he’s holding back his best combination 14 points. Given, as we have already mentioned, that for a possible second clash against the All Blacks in we’re not fielding our strongest combination, that’s the final – Ed] entirely possible. Meanwhile, on a completely different track, Sports24’s Garrin Lambley has written about the Springboks' shocking record under French referee Jerome Garces, who happens to be handling Saturday’s match.

A look back at history shows that, in his 53 Test matches so far, Garces has been in charge of the Springboks 14 times, of which the Boks managed to win only four. Meanwhile, the psychological warfare ratcheted up a couple of notches when Bok assistant coach, Mzwandile Stick called for officials to adopt a more accurate approach at the World Cup. A couple of days later, his boss said that everybody – including referees – respects the best team in the world and that can result in officials developing preconceived ideas about the No 1 side’s dominance.

Predictably, All Blacks coach, Steve Hansen, hit back saying the referee for the match should not be influenced one way or another. Fun and games.

Page 2 Page 3 Saffers for Other Countries at RWC2019

The interesting thing about this World Cup is the number of South Africans and former South Africans who will be in Japan representing other countries. Even at the coaching level this is true as the head coach of USA is Gary Gold, who was previously part of the Springbok coaching team.

But let’s look a little closer at players who were born or grew up in South Africa but will be representing other nations at Rugby World Cup 2019. Beginning with Pool A, both Ireland and Japan have a lock and a loose forward: Jean Kleyn and CJ Stander for the Irish In Pool B, Canada has a winger: DTH van der Merwe while Wimpie van der Walt and Lappies Labuschagné while Italy has a pair of flankers in Sebastian Negri will represent the Brave Blossoms. (born in Zimbabwe but educated in SA) and Braam Steyn. New Zealand certainly does not have any Saffers on staff and neither, it appears does Namibia. The fifth team in this pool is South Africa.

In Pool C, Argentina, and Tonga have made do without tapping talent with SA ties, but France has a loosie in Bernard Le Roux and USA has several: Hanco Germishuys (flanker), (scrum- half) and Marcel Brache (wing). Brache is a stretch because he was born in Los Angeles but grew up primarily in SA.

Pool D is interesting: only Australia has a player of SA extraction: Dane Haylett-Petty (fullback) – yeah, we Scotland have a pair of props, one for each side of the didn’t know that either. That brings the total to fourteen front row: Allan Dell and WP Nel. But Neither Russia - one short of a full team but, sadly, missing players in nor Samoa have had to dip into the South African key positions. However, we may have missed a player talent pool. or two so if you spot someone, do let us know.

Page 4 Page 5 Springbok Women to Face Spain, Scotland Sevens Series Preparation Gets Underway

With all the excitement about the men’s Rugby The headline above is perhaps a trifle misleading World Cup beginning today, the fact that the because it is highly likely that Springbok Sevens Springbok women are hosting an international series coach, , would have had his squad in over the next few weeks almost snuck in under the training well before now. radar. There are three matches on the schedule: one against Spain and two against Scotland. But there has been little news about it so we can only deduce that the Oktoberfest7s tournament in Regular readers may recall our hope a few weeks ago Germany this weekend will be an increase in the that SA Rugby would use the two years between now intensity of preparations for the 2019/2020 World and the next women’s World Cup to schedule games Series. That said, he has selected a for the Springbok women against sterner opposition pretty strong squad for the tournament that takes than they faced in qualifying for that competition. place on the opening weekend of the Rugby World This, hopefully, is the beginning of that. Cup in Japan.

The first game in this series is billed as SA Select vs Spain Invitational XV and, as such, probably won’t provide world ranking points. But it seems like a good idea for Springbok Women’s coach Stanley Raubenheimer to emulate the strategy of men’s coach Rassie Erasmus by focusing first on building depth.

Springbok assistant coaches Lungisa Kama and Eddie Myners are in charge of the SA Select women’s team at the WJ de Wet Stadium in Siviwe Soyizwapi will lead a team laden with players Despatch in the Eastern Cape. We’ll report back what that represented their country in the HSBC World happens against the Spanish side in next week’s Rugby Sevens Series in the past seasons, with the newsletter and also preview the first match against two most experienced players in the country, Branco Scotland. Unfortunately, this weekend’s game du Preez (71 tournaments) and (69 doesn’t appear to be on any television schedule we tournaments), included for the trip to Europe. could find. There is also a return to action for Zain Davids, While the Bok women currently remain 11th in the Mfundo Ndhlovu, James Murphy and , world rankings, Spain is 9th and Scotland is 12th. A all of whom were injured in the latter part of the win against the Spanish would be brilliant but 2018/19 World Series. probably not improve the Springbok ranking. However, wins against the Scots, at home, are South Africa are in Pool A with New Zealand, desperately needed to maintain their current ranking. England and Australia for the tournament, which will take place in the Olympic Stadium. Pool B consists of Germany, Fiji, USA and France. The playing schedule for Saturday is as follows:

15h06: New Zealand 17h29: England 20h14: Australia

Unfortunately, we couldn’t find the tournament on any local television schedule so you’d probably have to live stream it from Europe – if you have access to that type of technology.

Page 6 SA Youth Exodus to Foreign Shores Begins

We touched on this a couple of months back with the brouhaha over the exclusion of Kade Wolhuter from an SA Schools side because he had signed a contract to play overseas. Now, apparently, a mass exodus of promising junior rugby players has begun. "No fewer than eighteen school players of 2019 will play their rugby abroad in 2020."

The alarmist piece linked above suggests this will only increase the number of South Africans playing rugby abroad and, ultimately, representing other countries. Perhaps. The article blames the new contracting system introduced by SA Rugby as well Another target of the distraught author is as a shortage of junior competition in South Africa: transformation. We paraphrased that paragraph for “The fact that there will only be a week-long u19 you: the Strategic Transformation Plan also had an tournament from this year going forward as well impact on the number of players seeking opportunities the fact that the only junior inter-provincial offshore. Just over 30 players were offered junior tournament after school will be u21 and not u20 contracts by local unions for 2020 – compared to the without a doubt will also have had an impact on the 105 players who signed junior local contracts at the decision of the players to leave the country.” end of 2018. The author goes on to list the players taking up foreign contracts - or known to be in negotiations to do so. And when all is said an done, who can blame high school rugby players for taking the opportunity to play and grow as a player in a foreign country when the prospects back home are so poor.

But to maintain that these players will be forever be lost to Springbok selectors is fallacious. SA Rugby has proven of late that a Springbok call-up can come irrespective of where in the world you play your rugby.

Page 7 For your weekend rugby viewing pleasure

Between today and next Thursday, it’s the opening rounds of Rugby World Cup 2019 in Japan and, looking at local television guides, that’s likely the only rugby around for six weeks or so.

Thanks for reading our newsletter. We need feedback to improve The Rugby Team at Leopard Newsletters. it – and only you can give us that feedback. Please take the time to send us an email. We want to hear from you – good, bad or ugly, a pat on the back or a kick in the butt. Remember to look us up on Twitter, where you'll find many of our contributors on our timeline.

Page 8